A right SEO guide can help you to understand not only the basics but also to get its desired results efficiently. Whenever you need to search for anything online, what will you do? General practice is to go to Google or any other search engine, type a query or set of phrases, and click on Search.
As a result, you will get a big list of outcomes divided into different pages. Most of us do not have time to open and check each of the links. So generally, we choose from one or more links from the top 5 or top 10 and go to their respective links to find out whatever we are searching for as our main aim.
Do you ever imagine who decides, what should be included, why the top one is on top, and not on any other place, separate list to be shown for your searched term?
You might doubt by seeing different results for a different set of phrases you had written on Google or any other search engine.
The answer to every above query is SEO! Let us understand it in this beginners guide to SEO by considering the following facts regarding the same;
1) What is SEO?
The term is an abbreviated version for Search Engine Optimization. Now we can clearly understand it is the process of Optimizing or enhancing anything to make it friendly as per Search Engine. Now here, anything means a URL.
It can be either a web page, video, profile links, social media page, or any other entity on the internet! Combining everything for this SEO guide, SEO is the procedure to tweak a URL to get liked by the Search engine. It can be included in the top of the list on related search results.
2) Search Engines
Before moving any further to dig more information about SEO, let us first understand what Search Engines are and how they work in general. So, as the name suggests, it is an engine or software tool that helps to search for anything online. A great example would be Google, which is popular worldwide to search for anything among internet users!
Its program works on different sets of rules and policies written in its underlying algorithms. So whenever someone searches for anything by entering one or more words, then these algorithms work together. They will filter out the best possible results that can be helpful for the searcher.
3) Keywords
It can be one or more words that ordinary people generally use to search for their desired outcomes in search engines like Google. So a keyword is an essential part behind the success or failure of any SEO strategy.
We can assume the power of a keyword by the fact. It is that if your targeted audience uses it in its search query, then your optimized page will be shown above, then your competitors. Hence, you gain their attention first!
4) Keyword Research
Once you are sure that you want to optimize a particular URL to get more traffic for it in the future, then the next step is to perform keyword research. It is a process in which we will try to find the current trends of keywords. It is all about what people like to write in the search bar most of the time while searching for anything related to you.
Throughout keyword research, you must use any trusted google keyword research tool or else. It can help you get different suggestions of keywords based on the number of searches and competition in the market. You can add them in that particular URL using some strategies like On-Page, or Off-page SEO tactics.
5) How Does SEO Work?
The whole process of SEO works in a specific way. Once you edit a web page to make it SEO friendly for some keywords, the search engine's crawlers will come and index those pages into their Database.
When someone uses that keyword or includes it with other search terms, the search engine will explore its database. Further, the related URLs can be shown as a result of that particular searcher.
It will find your website and include it in its SERPs(Search Engine Results Pages) based on the rank provided by its algorithms! In this way, the websites shown on the top of the first page have higher chances of more targeted traffic than other page results.
6) Why is SEO so important?
There are many benefits of applying SEO strategies for any of your property either for professional or personal purposes. First of all, it will help you gain Organic traffic coming directly from search engines like Google.
Secondly, if your optimized URL rank on the first position for a particular keyword, then it builds trust in a stranger. People will find that your website is more authoritative than others.
If you have a good rank on a particular keyword compared to your competitors, you can again try to make more profits. It is possible by using such keywords for Ads and other marketing purposes!
7) On-page SEO
The first and foremost step to optimizing any URL for one or more targeted keywords is adding them to that particular landing page of that URL. It can be done at different places like the URL itself, suppose www.abc.com/url/. You can also include those keywords in the title, subtitles, main content of that particular webpage.
Additionally, it would be best to have images on that page with captions, including your keywords. These simple tweaks or edits on your webpage using your targeted keywords can make it search engine friendly. Hence, the indexing bots will understand your page and pick it to be shown on the SERPs for that mentioned keyword on your webpage.
8) Link Building
In this most competitive world, it is not sufficient to only depend on Onpage and wait for the desired outcomes. So, try also continues to focus on Off-page SEO. It is the primary technique to create backlinks of your URL on different other websites or social platforms.
Using them, you can gain some traffic and authority for your targeted URL to be ranked. Thus it is helpful for a search engine to assign a top ranking for your URL. But, it also helps a human to reach to your website from other ways other than only using the search engine.
9) Content
It is the last google SEO guide (but not least) an important thing regarding SEO on our list. Someone has said it correct – “Content is King!” So every digital marketer understands the importance of quality and unique SEO friendly content. It is something that can not only entices your human visitors but the bot as well as search engines.
So first, you need to have a set of high searched keywords to be targeted. Further, your main focus is to build a useful, informative, and helpful content for your URL that you want to rank on search engines. Once you are done with uploading rich content, you can progress further by including the desired keywords in it wherever possible.
Conclusion
The motto of this google SEO starter guide is to help understand the underlying concepts of helping a website to reach its targeted audience. To get advanced information you can also refer to other SEO complete guides or an SEO practical guide for in-depth learning.
In this highly digital era, almost everyone has a personal gadget and is always connected with the internet. So, if you own a URL, you should be familiar with the basics and techniques of optimizing websites to gain enough visitors for it. By the way, SEO is a trial and test method using new strategies.
You can also measure SEO's potential with Google Analytics or any other useful SEO analytics tool available at present. After all, the Internet is soon going to be a need in everyone’s life, one or the other way, especially for the survival of businesses!
